Getting Help from Allison — Support Widget, Help Center, and Setup Chat

The dashboard has three ways to talk to Allison directly. They serve different purposes but share the same Allison: same knowledge, same configuration tools, same account access. Once you're logged in, you don't have to navigate to a help center to ask a question. Just click and ask.

The floating support widget

The widget lives in the bottom-right corner of every dashboard page except the setup wizard (/dashboard/agent-setup) and the help center (/dashboard/support). Both of those pages have their own dedicated chat surface, so the floating widget hides to avoid duplication. Click the chat icon to open it; it expands into a panel where you can ask Allison anything about the platform, your account, or your data.

What makes it useful:

• Page-aware. The widget knows which dashboard page you're on. If you're on the Calls page and ask "why did this call escalate?", Allison answers in that context. If you're on the Knowledge Base and ask "why isn't my agent using this FAQ?", she answers with your knowledge base in front of her.
• Authenticated. Because you're already logged in, Allison has full read access to your account: your knowledge base, team, schedules, calls, contacts, billing history, integrations, watchtower scores. She doesn't need to ask "what's your account?" because she already knows.
• Configuration-capable. You can ask Allison to make changes: add a fact, update your hours, add a team member, manage an escalation rule. She reads the current state, states exactly what she's about to do, waits for your confirmation, then makes the change. See Configuring via Conversation for the full list of what's configurable through chat.
• Persistent history. Conversations are saved. Re-open the widget later and you can pick up where you left off. The history panel inside the widget lets you jump back to old conversations.
• Voice mode. A "Call Allison" button inside the widget lets you talk to her by voice, right in your browser using your computer's microphone. Same agent, same access, just voice instead of text. Useful for hands-free troubleshooting or when typing feels heavy.

The full-page chat

The full-page chat at /dashboard/support (titled Chat with Allison; type "support" into global search to jump there) is the expanded version of the widget. It has the same chat with Allison, a panel listing your past conversations so you can reopen any of them, a browsable library of help articles, and the same Call Allison button. Use it when you want more room than the widget gives you or when you're looking for an article rather than asking a question. The floating widget hides on this page since the chat is already in front of you.

The per-step setup chat

When you're on the setup wizard at /dashboard/agent-setup, the floating widget hides and a different chat appears, inline with the current step. This is the setup chat.

What makes it different:

• Scoped to the step. The setup chat only knows about the step you're currently on. If you're on the Knowledge step and ask "how does this work?", Allison answers from the perspective of that step. Switch to the Call Handling step, and she's now in that context.
• Configuration is the default mode. The setup wizard is about configuring your agent, so the chat is tuned to do that: adding facts, FAQs, intents, locations, team members, etc. The same configuration tools available in the floating widget are available here.
• Each step's chat is saved separately so you can revisit "what did I discuss on the Tone step?" without wading through other conversations.

The setup chat is meant to be your guide through the wizard. Allison can answer questions about each step, suggest what to fill in, and apply changes in real time as you go.

When to use which

Pick whichever feels more natural for what you're doing:

• Setup chat when you're configuring your agent (especially during initial setup or revisiting setup later)
• Floating widget for everything else: questions about how the platform works, account-specific questions, troubleshooting, general "I'm not sure where to find X"
• Full-page chat when you want to browse articles or scroll back through earlier conversations

You can switch between them freely. They share the same backend, same conversation history, and same configuration tools.

What Allison can and can't do via chat

She can:

• Answer questions about the platform (using her knowledge base + your account state)
• Read your account data and tell you what you want to know
• Make configuration changes after confirming with you (knowledge, team, schedules, escalation rules, locations, settings, owner notes)
• Create a support ticket on your behalf if she can't resolve something
• Escalate a conversation to a human team member when needed

She can't:

• Change payment methods, plan tiers, or cancel your subscription (the dashboard handles these directly so you can't accidentally change billing through chat)
• Connect OAuth integrations (those need a browser redirect: she'll point you at the right page)
• Add documents (those go through the Docs editor: she'll point you at the Docs tab)
• Delete your account (intentional: final account actions go through the dashboard with explicit UI confirmation)

Anything Allison can't do, she'll either point you at the right dashboard page or offer to create a ticket so the team can help.

How honest is Allison about what she can do?

We work hard at this. Allison is required to:

• Tell you when she doesn't know something rather than making up an answer
• Try a reformulated search before saying "I don't have documentation on that"
• Offer to create a ticket when the platform genuinely doesn't have an answer
• Never invent URLs, email addresses, or affordances that don't exist

If you ever get an answer from Allison that turns out to be wrong, that is a bug. Let us know via the ticket flow and we'll trace it back to the gap (usually a missing or out-of-date help article).

What's not yet supported

• Floating widget on the public help center. The widget is dashboard-only (subscriber-side). The public /help pages don't have a chat surface. If you want to chat, you need to be logged in.
• Pre-signup chat. Prospects can call the discovery line directly to talk to Allison about what the platform does. That is a separate surface (the consultation agent). The dashboard chat is for already-onboarded subscribers.
• Multi-user shared conversations. Conversations are per-user. If two team members on the same account both chat with Allison, they each have their own conversation history. There's no shared "team Slack with Allison."
• Custom chat triggers (e.g., "when X happens, automatically send me an Allison-generated summary"). The chat is reactive: you ask, she answers. Trigger-based chat is not currently supported.